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U.S. to Require Passport To Re-Enter Country
The Hobo writes "The CBC is reporting that starting in 2007, most Canadians will require a passport to cross into the United States and by 2008 Americans who crossed freely into Canada will be unable to return to the United States without a passport. The tougher new rules still allow Canadians to cross without being fingerprinted, but every person from any other country will be required to submit to fingerprinting." From the article: "Currently, Canadians and Americans are able to enter the United States with little more identification than a driver's licence or a birth certificate, though a passport has sometimes made it simpler to satisfy immigration officers at the border."
Because, as we all know, passports are never forged. Ever.
I don't see how we are more "protected" than the current system.
Shouldn't be too long before interstate travel in the US requires a passport. That'll finally put an end to criminals moving to another state to hide from the law.
"The great thing about multitasking is that several things can go wrong at once." -me
You didn't read the article, did you? "And by 2008, most Americans who visit Canada won't be able to re-enter their country without a passport." You sure *will* need a passport to come home. I don't know what will happen if you don't have it, but you can bet it won't be pleasant or speedy.
yeah, the global war on terror is used as an excuse for the current regimes totalitarian tendencies. You americans better read 1984.
to NOT travel to the USA
come to canada instead - all of the beauty - none of the ph34r
I'll just use my special getting high powers one more time...
The CBC is reporting that starting in 2007, most Canadians will require a passport to cross into the United States and by 2008 Americans who crossed freely into Canada will be unable to return to the United States without a passport. The tougher new rules still allow Canadians to cross without being fingerprinted, but every person from any other country will be required to submit to fingerprinting.
Now, it's my understanding that a sovereign country can control their borders in any way they see fit. Perhaps there's some sort of rights argument to be made about the americans who need a passport to re-enter their country, although it doesn't seem like a major issue, but Canadians.. heck, I'm a Canadian, and it doesn't really effect our rights. America can do whatever they want with their borders to non-citizens. If they don't want to let us come in, heck, that really is their perogative.
"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan
it's sad but true, the Bush administration is alienating canada like no other administration in US history..
from the beef ban to the tarifs on soft wood, now tightening the border only makes canadians not want to vacation in the US.. or for that matter have anything to do with americans.. which is a shame really.
MABASPLOOM!
I submitted the story, and forgot to include this as food for thought:
Think of a typical family of four. My own just did this. Say this family wants to go to Disneyland from Canada. As it stands, my parents were able to go with the young'ns without a problem, and none of them have passports. Tourists from Canada are a part of the US economy. Had the passports been required, it would have cost: 87 + 87 + 37 + 37, plust GST, which is a total of 265.36$, and that doesn't even include the trouble of finding a guarantor and taking passport photos which cost more than normal photos. This is on top of any other travel costs, likely for a single trip. This will most definitely deter Canadians from visiting and spending money in the US. Not to mention that passports take at least 3 weeks to get, ruling out any sudden decisions to say pick a US ski package to a Canadian one. I personally enjoy taking trips to the US, but this makes it much harder, and I'm certain this scenario will be repeated.
There is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men. -- Boondock Saints
Don't mean to be picky (ok, maybe I do), but how is this story about "Rights Online"? Politics maybe. I agree there may be a rights issue. Big Brother Bush wanting to ensure that we all stay adequatly Nationalist and all, but I troll...
YRO, IIRC, is "Your Rights Online". And don't say, "Your reading it online, right?" 'Cause that would be "Your Rights, Online".
Sig
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars
Used to be freer than that
Man, I've been hearing that my whole life (sigh).
As long as they have proper documentation and identification. Otherwise its...
"I'm sorry sir, but your papers are not in order.."
I'd have no problem with this were I to need a passport to enter http://kenlayne.com/new_map.jpg Jesusland. I'd never have to use it, except maybe to go to New Orleans.
When I read stuff like this I can't help but hope Canada (and the rest of the world) realizes that there's 49% of us who shake our heads at most of this administration's decisions.
U.S. citizens get pretty pissed off when you try and fingerprint them as they enter another country. And more countries will follow suit with this. The principle of reciprocality is enforced by most nations on this planet....so get ready to be fingerprinted U.S. citizens...you treat guests in your country like criminals, and we'll treat you the same way if you ever come to ours...only we'll probably dick you around for 9 hours in the airport as a bit of payback.
Since when did producing a passport become the equivalent of a cavity search?
Idiotic statements like yours lead me to believe you are uneducated and don't understand the horrors that the Soviets put their citizens through.
Mmmm.. Donuts
CNN said this is being done to prevent terrorism. I have some questions. Did any of the 9/11 hijackers enter the US through Mexico or Canada? Does this appear to be another case of lawmakers and politicians trying to look "tough on terrorism" when what they are doing has little, or nothing, to do with terrorism?
This seems perfectly reasonable. If you leave one gaping hole in US border patrol, like the entire northern border, then you may as well not patrol the other borders. Yes it's possible to forge a passport, but with 50 differnet formats and much lower security, dirvers licenses are much easier to get and to forge. This will certainly cut down on tourism on both sides of the border, but without it the border patrol is really missing a big loophole.
And for those of you who say "What next?! Papers at the state border?" Give me a break this is nowhere near that extreme and you should know it.
THIS SPACE FOR RENT
That'll stop Terr'rists! The 9/11 hijackers had legit ID, sheesh. More scare tactics to make you feel safe as the government takes away your freedom of movement.
Last time I travelled to Japan I was required to show my passport upon re-entering the United States. Last time I travelled to Europe (more than ten years ago!), same thing.
The deal we had with Canada was a special thing. You don't have any "right" to travel to another country and then re-enter without a passport. In fact, most countries require it - including the United States in every other case (except now with Mexico - and you can bet the DHS is looking at that now too).
This is just closing a loophole in the current immigration system. I don't see why Americans should continue to be able to get away without even owning a passport when practically every other citizen of the civilized world carries one pretty much wherever they go. There's no reason for us to be smug about our backwardness.
Because the assholes who planebombed NYC and DC all had passports, were known terrorists, and were connected on the record with the assholes who bombed the WTC in 1993. Mohammed Atta's passport was somehow found fluttering atop the burning steel slag of the WTC - even tougher than the 2 planes' 4 blackbox recorders, which have never been reported found. I feel safer already.
--
make install -not war
But can a country deny entry to one of its own citizens? I can see US customs detaining US citizens for drug/weapon/not declaring duty offences, but actually denying an American citizen the right to enter their own country?
Oh nevermind, excuse me... Bin Laden is on the teevee again so it's time for our two minutes of Hate. I hear W Bush has a conference scheduled afterwards to talk about all the Peace his wars have brought, how the new anti-terrorism laws make America free, and how strong the country is are with a leader like himself.
After that, then I'll maybe have some time to listen to your lame 1984 analogies -- you paranoid nutcase.
501 Not Implemented
This is reflecting the new political reality that the current Administration and the ruling party in congress considers left-leaning first world nations as ideological enemies to be isolated and opposed on the global stage. It's a clear sign that the US considers open access to Canada and Canadian culture as being counterproductive to their ideals in reshaping America to the Dickensian nightmare of theocracy and plutocracy.
This isn't a security issue. This is an issue of punishing America's closest allies for following a different political destiny. It's to protect Michiganders and New Hampshirites from being exposed to affordable healthcare, gay rights and decrinminalized marijuana.
Don't think it's true? Look at the ruthless, relentless and sometimes threatening and bellicose criticism of Europe by the right-wing blogosphere, professional pundits, and administration officials like Rumsfeldt. Canada is culturally closer to Europe at this point than the US... and the US will be punishing them for that at every opportunity.
It's a new Berlin wall, to discourage cultural contamination. I can think of nothing more heartbreaking.
SoupIsGood Food
I call bullshit.
Discounting the longer security lines, it's no harder for US citizens to travel internationally than it was before 9/11.
And yes, I speak from experience. Hell, I renewed my passport through the mail in under 3 weeks.
Humorless sig goes here.
It's still the longest undefended border in the world last I checked, and it's not like we put a big ol' fence up to keep them out or something.
I guess for me I'm thinking 'about time' vs. 'oh my god I'm violated'. I've had the honor of going to Canada twice now and I took my passport with me both times. I would take my passport anytime I leave the country, and Canada is one of those times.
I think of it being the opposite? Not that Canada is any harder/easier to forge papers in but what if Ahab the Arab is in Canada and actually goes through a border checkpoint instead of walking across a frozen river in the winter. Making them have to forge a few more papers shouldn't be that hard.
They've lost some 'favored nation' type status because of our history together, big deal. We make every other country use a passport to get in and that's not stopped the tourists, hell even getting them killed in florida doesn't stop em.
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Please do not use an "irrational form of persuasion" on slashdot. We're too smart for that :)
Your irrational form of persuasion was in the form of "guilt by association" which involves the application of a faulty analogy.
You are implying that merely because the United States is becoming slightly stricter with identifying who enters and leaves its' county, that they are somehow turning into the next Soviet Empire.
Another example: "Canada is becoming the next Soviet Union because of the introduction of a strictly government run medicare system"
The analogies one can make are endless.
My personal opinion on this issue is that I don't care if they want my passport, I always have my passport when I leave my country, it's the sane thing to do. If the Americans want my fingerprints though, I'd think twice before going on a vacation there, but I still wouldn't call them the U.S.S.R.!
It was especially telling when i spent time in former east germany, and especially east berlin.
After seeing first hand the memorial to the berlin wall, and the destruction all across east germany (like how none of it was rebuilt during the pre-unification years), i vowed that the next time i heard some fucking _IDIOT_ saying something positive about communisim/socialism, or trying to compare whats happening in the US to what transpired in eastern europe and the soviet union, id be sure and make my token attempt to set them straight.
You sir, are seriously lacking perspective.
My wife and i flew from the US to the EU and back and no cavities were searched. We brought back food items and the customs people were very pleasant and allowed our stuff with no problems. The metal detectors detected metal on my body i didn't realize existed (i.e. in my shoes).
Having crossed the border between canada and the US several times via car, i've always been alarmed at how lax the security was - even though the trunk of my car was searched on a few occasions (i tend to seem suspicious, i guess), i never felt it was unreasonable for the border patrol to try and ascertain if i had a trunk full of bodies or guns or something.
I am all for extremely strong border protections. All are welcome in the US, so long as they play by the rules, which are set and enforced by the sole discretion of the US. I wish we were putting our troops on the mexican border instead of some of the other places they're currently deployed, but thats political suicide (behaving reasonably often is)
Controlling who enters and exits the US is a good idea. You can be sure that what the US is doing - trying to do a marginal job at asking "so, who are you?" is a damn sight less invasive than shooting women in the back, which is how things were handled in some of the regimes you're comparing the US to.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
It also helps to be the right skin colour and accent, or at least not the "wrong" ones.
I get waved through all the time too. My cousin, on the other hand, has gotten his car ripped apart.
Exactly! Despite all the hand-wringing here, that's what this change is actually all about.
The formal rules for who can come and go haven't changed, what has changed is just the level of proof that a person has to supply in order to come into the country. Previously if a white, accent-free American went to Canada and upon returning said "I'm a citizen", he or she would be pretty much just let in. But if an arab-looking American with an accent went to Canada and upon returning said "I'm a U.S. citizen", do you think he or she would just waltz in? I doubt it. But do you think America really should let any person who says "I'm a U.S. citizen" waltz into the country with little or no proof?
This change "levels the field" by setting common, enforceable criteria for entering the country. If you have a valid U.S. passport or a foreign passport with an appropriate visa, you can come in, regardless of race, accent, or appearance. If you don't, well... I guess you'll be spending the afternoon at the U.S. consulate while they check you out more thoroughly.
P.S. Driver's licenses and birth certificates are essentially "no proof" as the former does not actually indicate citizenship or residency, the latter doesn't have a photo, neither has a standard format, and both are easy to fake.
"To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything or nothing about it." -- Olin Miller
This seems perfectly reasonable. If you leave one gaping hole in US border patrol, like the entire northern border, then you may as well not patrol the other borders.
You do realize that the number of illegal border crossings on the southern border are 20 times larger than any on the northern border, don't you?
Want to stop illegal crossings? Make the employers go to jail.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Isn't that kind of silly? The American already needs a passport to get back into his country. Take that, you people who are going into Canada on a one-way trip.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
My mother has had a US driver license for over 30 years. She was not, however, a US citizen for most of this time, she was a resident alien. Driver licenses are just that: licenses to operate a vehicle. They do not indicate citizenship, or even residency status.
The US lacks a citizen ID card like many nations have, so the only real document that works is a passport.
Replace 'Canada' with 'The World' and you're still quite on mark.
There's a lot of small towns near the border, on both sides with businesses have become dependant on the very easy and quick ability for people to pass back and forth across the border without the slightest hassle. I wonder if this change will dampen the economies of those small towns. Using a passport is only a small hassle, but it's a small hassle where previously there were none.
When I was a small child my family went on a car trip through the canadian rockies. The border guard was one guy in a booth not much larger than a photomat. There wasn't even a barrier gate across the road that lifted out of the way or anything like that, just a stop sign. This was the full extent of the border crossing questions:
guard (seeing family station-wagon): Hello folks, May I ask your purpose in entering Canada?
my Dad: sightseeing camping. (obvious from the car full of supplies).
guard: Are you planning on staying long?
my Dad: just two weeks.
guard: Do you have any guns or fruit? (What an odd combination of of questions)
my Dad - a bag of apples we just bought for lunch later.
guard: If you just bought them it should be okay. We're worried about the spread of fruit flies from further south but if you just bought them in washington they'll be fine.
guard: yup! Welcome to Canada. Have a wonderful trip.
my Dad - Don't you need to see some ID?
guard: I suppose if it will make you feel better.
The re-entry into the US was even more lax - The guard saw the license plates on the car were from the US, and asked, "Let's see - plates from Wisconsin - car packed for a camping trip - Coming back from a vacation I see? Okay - Welcome back, go on through..."
Sigh. Those were friendlier times.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
So if your papers aren't "in order", you're not a Real American (TM). Sounds like Fatherland Defense. Show us your papers, please.
Of course he hasnt.
They don't know anything about Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia either, because if they did, they wouldn't be comparing the US to either country.
So now I'll need to get a passport - which costs $87, and must be renewed every 5 years - just to cross the border??!
Uhm.. no thanks. I think I'll just stay at home.
I am the maverick of Slashdot
I however find it hard to fault the US for requiring documents that everyone else requires for entrance into their nations.
If requiring a passport for entrance in the US is inconvenient because its hard for some people to get passports from their current governments, is it fair to lay all of the blame on the US?
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Let's get drunk and delete production data!
Which has always been true of every piece of government issued ID.
Your point was?
All I'm saying is that all ID is worthless so it might as well be a passport as any other piece of ID. Or not. Either way if the government wants to fuck you they will.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
You don't have any "right" to travel to another country and then re-enter without a passport.
Right...well, perhaps not. But history has been on the side of paperless travel, in particular with regards to Canada. They only began immigration checks on the US-Canada border in the 1950s (I remember reading somewhere that there were riots when this started, it was very controversial.) Since about the 1980s Congress has mandated a passport for Americans travelling from countries from outside of the Western Hemisphere. A lot of that rule still stands...I can go to just about any Carribbean country with my birth certificate, and even my home country of Costa Rica decided to cash in on the tourist dollars and allow Americans to travel there with just a birth certificate. It's possible that, if the US never required Americans to have a passport for re-entry, than neither would have the Japanese for your trips.
On a side note, apparently, the passport was created during World War I as a temporary document intended to prevent spies from crossing european borders. It was not a document viewed well...europeans were horrified by the idea that they would require documentation to go across borders. I'm amused by the bogus reasoning for its creation...it gives me a little satisfaction to know that people were as dumb then as they are now.
There are certainly people stopped from going one way or another on the US-Canadian border, but it still has not been proven that there's an aggregate security increase from documented crossing than without documented crossings. It's possible our time would be better spent doing different types of security checks than documentation checks.
You're white, therefore you don't have any ties to terrorism.
You're male, thus there's no point in strip-searching you / checking body cavities.
Insightful or troll? It is now at the point where I can't tell either.
---
ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
As a US citizen, I am expected to honor the border crossing requirements of all the countries I travel to, including planning ahead for those that require a visa. I'm expected to put up with the nonsense of an Australian customs inspector who wanted to fine me for bringing Australian-produced chocolate back into Australia after a two day side-trip to New Zealand. I'm expected to leave my passport with the train conductor when I travel cross-continent in Europe (can anyone else say "identity theft"?)
So now the US wants to have visitors here produce some ID to show they belong, just like all the countries I visit have demanded from me. "Its an insult to Canadians!" Oh, please. If you don't want to come here, stay home. And if you are a US citizen who travels out of country, get a passport. Problem solved.
I'm not sure why people think having to carry a passport to leave the country is a big deal. I'm Canadian, and I've never even thought of leaving the country without a passport, it is the only proof you have of where you're from and where you are legally allowed to be. People have no problem shelling out $70 every 5 years for their drivers licenses in order to drive a car, how is this different?
Excuse me, but how do you think we feel about it? Any Americans with two neurons left to rub together to make a spark is saddened by the souring of our relationship with you. And not just you but just about every other country on the planet.
How would you like to be saddled with George Bush and have 52% of your fellows think he's just a great guy? And then try to blame you for their vote because you didn't come up with a better candidate. Try it for a while and see how it feels.
We're watching a country we love descend into ignorance, intolerance and fear.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
"Damn, does that mean we're stuck with them then?"
There's always the catapult.
I'm glad you took the time to write the response you did. It is very rare to hear from Americans who dislike the direction their country has taken. Because of the massive amount of words and action from the other 52% of your fellows, it is damn near impossible not to generalize or write-off the whole country.
I think his point was that they are restricting the rights of their own citizens to travel outside their borders. As in, you're only allowed to leave if we give you permission to leave. One of those things that they used to point the finger at Iraq about. One of those totalitarian things, you dig?
God damn that country scares me. Every day they look more and more like Germany in the 30s. Constant surveillance of its citizenry, living in a nice comfy womb of propaganda, secrets, secret police, imprisoning people without trial or accountability, ever increasing unification between the corporations and the goverment, the ever increasing religious rhetoric of the leadership, government rewriting science, I mean fuck. They're scary enough without having all the worlds nukes and a president that can't string his words together.
And the proud American moderators will bring this offensive post to -1 in a heartbeat.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
I remember being a kid visiting Canada and walking over one of the bridges into NY State. You know, past the doughnut-munching border security guys that seemed so prevalent in those days. Anyway, I was happily scouting around in the American bush looking for stones (telling myself happily over and over that these were *American* stones I was looking at now), when my Dad saw me and almost had apoplexy.
Needless to say, 21 years later, I now have three passports and regularly travel within and outside of Europe. Things sure have changed since the "auld days". More security. More suspicion. And passports checks at EVERY airport or crossing, no matter if you're an EU citizen or not.
Y'know, part of me can't help but pine for those days when a foreign kid was able to slip into the States. The worst thing about the whole experience was that I only got offered ONE doughnut by one of the border security guards instead of two or more. If I managed to do the same things nowadays, I'm sure I'd be rectally examined, be screened for radiocative material, be slung into a dark corner somewhere while some idiotic US Senator called me a "jewvinyl turr'st" on the world media and generally wait for six months until the diplomatic shitstorm was over.
Slowly, but ever so surely, the world is turning into a more unpleasant place. Blame it on maximising shareholder value and short election cycles. Together - along with lawyers / solicitors / whatever-they-call-themselves-the-results-are-the- same - it's the unholy trinity that is ruining the world around us.
In particular:
How does that work? If you think of a passport as something you need to enter another country, then if you need to get into the US, then you are by definition coming from another country, so you would have taken your passport when entering that other country in the first place...so you'll still have your passport when you return to try to get into the US, right? Or are people leaving the US with their passports, and leaving their passports abroad when they come back?
As that's not likely :-), I assume it's really because American people don't generally think of Canada as 'another country' like they do with other countries? I mean, it's similar, has a land border, they (mostly) speak the same language, etc.
Or am I missing some other cultural effect?
Or, for another example, take China. I've only seen a little bit of China, the bit near Hong Kong. But you get a sense of just how quickly parts of China are growing when you go there.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
God-damned authoritarians removing every last vestige of liberty in this once-free land. Both parties are to blame; very few people actually care for freedom. Bastards.
Guess you don't watch the news here.. we have kids taking guns from police officers to school and killing dozens of people.
We have people who tape over there mouths to protest someones dying wish
we have people who think there is such thing as "conservative" and "moderate republican" still.
We have people who think freedom is guns and freedom is fear and the really sad part is people preferr that.
I'd take a little bit of english heritage anyday over the biggotry of GWB's administration
There was a case where a crime was commited in the UK. They had a finger print of the criminal from the scene of the crime. They searched their database and up popped a local suspect. He went to jail, lost his house and freedom. Only problem was HE DID NOT DO IT.
The moment you are on the finger database you open yourself up to the possibility of being mistakenly considered a Terrorist. (And that is really bad as you tend to be guilty unless proven innocent.)
As I understand no two fingerprints are the same. Even from the same finger. Therefore it is up to interpretation as to whether the finger prints match.
Anyone remember the book 1984? Was it just 30 years ahead of it's time?
Calling Bush a Fascist does no disservice to those who suffered under Franco, Mussolini or Hitler, just because Bush has not gone to the extremese as the above mentioned dictators does not mean he is not a fascist. It just means he's not a freakin' psycho who happens to control a nation.
With a lot of the so called "Anti-Terrorist" legislation Bush and the Neo-Cons (gotta love the name) you can see an underlying thread of low level fascism, from the ability to detain without due process "For the Good Of The Nation" to the idea that America is and should be the One True Leader.
Witness the drug market. How many people out there that don't use drugs know someone who uses drugs? How many of you people could pretend to have enough interest in said drugs to learn enough about who they bought them from to file an anonymous tip?
Probably a good half of the population could, with almost no work at all, and the possiblity of a reward. Including many police officers. I know I could, at least three times. (That is, I know three completely different sets of drug users, who I assume do not have the same supplier as they live very far apart.)
How many people actually do that?
Almost no one.
How many people know someone who's a murderer and don't turn them in?
Almost no one. They'd have to be a real good friend or close relative, or you'd have to think the murder was justified in some way.
If it requires a valid passport to get into the US, and people commonly, for whatever reason, need to sneak in without them, there will be a black market up and down the Canadian border within a year. Everyone will know a guy who knows who to get you in touch with, exactly like drugs are now. (Well, everyone who lives near the border will know a guy, I guess. Probably not people in Florida. OTOH, people in Florida probably already know a guy who knows a guy who can get people out of Cuba.)
The only way there won't be a black market is if everyone gets passports, or they start not letting US citizens into Canada without a US passport, so no one has a problem getting back.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
thats a funny theory...
:)
i'm a red state resident (and by intention) and i voted to the right of the current administration (by european standards)
i just spent a month in germany and iceland, including 2 weeks of schooling in the german language.
I for the life of me cannot understand where the radical left, and those who foam at the mouth with their hatred of the US / the current admnistration come from.. i've yet to hear of a perfect politician but man, i just dont get the fuss. With this in mind, i figured i'd hear it from the horses mouth and come back to the states with some kind of new perspective on life.
Instead what i learned is that at least from the people i spoke with, the violently anti-US and anti-bush fever is fed and spun basically everywhere, and its almost more of a beleif/perspective than anything objective.
After being badgered about it for a while, I tried asking some relatives in iceland why they felt the need to tell me that they hated GWB (i never brought up poltiics, but plenty of people, upon finding i was american, told me they hated Bush, are hoping hillary clinton wins in 08, and that the US government sucks.. all totaly out of context of whatever the conversation was)
What i got was: europeans generally dislike bush for 3 reasons
1) iraq invasion
2) "he's too right wing"
3) "he's too religious"
skipping point 1, i asked about the other two.
regarding point #2, i asked if being "right wing" was intrinsically bad. it apparently isn't. then i pointed out that, compared to europe, the US _is_ right wing, and furthermore, the US was founded by people that either couldn't stand, couldn't survive, or couldn't legally continue to, put up with the bullshit of the governments of europe, so if we dont have the same exact world view, there's a reason for that. I also assured him that some in the US are vastly more "right wing" than GWB, who has really let down some of the red state voters on some issues..
on point 3, well, i asked what the objection was. apparently the president should never use "God" in a speech. Nevermind that our money has "In god we trust" written on it. Nevermind also that in Iceland, the president's house has its own private church on the grounds, and the president is expected to enter that building to pray for the country in times of danger. Or that in Germany, you've got the Christian Democratic party with a huge percentage of power. Yet the US/GWB is seen as beeing "too religious". Riiiiiiight.
I also had a very interesting discussion on the iraq war issue with them, and i wouldn't say that they had a compelling argument, although thats too much flamebait even for slashdot
In any case, I really liked some of the things big government and overregulation gets you (like the munich public transit system, and unrestricted autobahns... only possible with the ridiculous TUV and licensing process in germany).. but after talking with people and finding a lot more heat than light, i was glad to be returning to the US. My wife is exicted about purchasing our first family firearm, since the students we met from dublin told us over and over that they were mortified that someone in the US could have a gun in their home, and that such a person would be insane, and that they'd never even enter a _building_ with resident-owned firearms inside.. fearing for their safety.
Finally, i told the people that were frothy at the mouth about how awful the US government was, that, unlike their countries, if they disliked how the US did things, they could move here, learn english (which most europeans under the age of 40 know quite well anyhow), pay their $75 or whatever it is, vote, and do something to change it.
In any case, I look forward to going back to Germany as often as possible, if for no other reason than the Nurburgring and the unrestricted zones, but one reason i suspect i'll never live there is that getting residency/citizenship in germany is a he
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
- The man can't do public speaking.
- He contradicts himself frequently
- He lies or is completely out to lunch about the "facts"
...
But of all his faults, his biggest is that he's too brash. The people who criticize him without too much reasoning often do so because they simply dislike the way that he pushes his "ideas" through.I don't dislike him for having ideas (though I don't like the majority of them), and I don't dislike him for being strong. But I do dislike him for the way he uses his power.
I liked Clinton, though to be brutally honest, he did a terrible job on most fronts. But he had a great way of making people feel good about what he was doing (or at least said he was going to do). When he pushed his weight around, it was all behind the scenes. Heck, Clinton was a better republican than either of the Bushes when it comes to cutting government spending and reducing aid programs.
GW just doesn't have finess. Very few of the "radical right" do.
This kind of politics may play well in some parts of the US, or even during spike periods (e.g. around elections and "hot-button" issues...though often on irrelevant issues)...but it often divides that country. And for "foreigners" (like me), it often pits many who would have little-to-no opinion of "Americans" to be rather upset with them.
We used to envy the "free world", where you don't cross borders even between "allied countries", with fear.
We really hated to arrived back from the West, it used to be so much more relaxing to arrive to the West.
We truly admired, that when going to West, we did not face soldiers with machine guns, dogs, nobody searched trough our packages, and pockets.
Then after the fall of Communism, my former "native land" joined the EU. It felt almost surreal to arrive to London, UK and instead of lining up together with Canadian passport holders, I just walked in with flashing the ID card from Hungary.
It's terrifying to see how the world seems to take a 180 degree turn: the USA resembles more and more to the old, hated Communist Empire.
Even the ideology to create this new police state is all too familiar: we have to protect ourselves from the "alien" enemy, which wants to destroy us.
Even by surrendering our freedoms to the state.
Do Americans realize, that Bush's famous "who is not with us, is against us" spin in his speech after 9/11 used to be a corner stone piece of the Communist ideology?
Do Americans realize, that the Fox network sounds more and more like the Communist state propaganda "press" used to sound like?
Do Americans realize, that the economies of the former Communist states were partly destroyed by the ever increasing cost of paranoid self-defence?
Do Americans realize what they loose when they subscribe to state sponzored fear?
I doubt it. For us, raised behind the iron curtain once upon a time, all this sounds way too familiar. We would laugh of this deja vu - if we didn't know it better.